While I wholeheartedly agree that this is a crying shame, I'm not sure it quite represents the outright catastrophe that some suggest. I'm absolutely sure I'd still want to join the UAS if I were at the Fresher's Fair this autumn. I would have thought there are still hundreds of teenagers out there who spend their youth going to air shows, playing flight simulators and dreaming of flying a fast jet down the Welsh valleys (I'm not the only sad one am I?). For people like that 10 hours of flying in an aerobatic aircraft and low-level nav down Derwent Water (?) will still be very attractive. And as has been mentioned above, probably well over half of my old UAS didn't come close to flying 30 hours a year anyway (maybe I went through with a particularly apathetic bunch though?).
On a slight tangent, while I wouldn't want to suggest that we don't need to take the cream of today's graduates, I'm not sure I agree with the argument that it's a show-stopper because Typhoon is a single-seater. I think the RAF are a bit wrapped around the axle about single-seat pilots needing to be sky-gods or something. I think it's largely a function of our current platforms. I mean the Jag, pre Jag-96 days was an ergonomic disaster, and the Harrier's always had a bit of a reputation for being a little unforgiving at times. Maybe there's a bit of a hangover from Lightning and Hunter days too. But the rest of the world send their 'average' pilots to fly the Viper, Hornet, Mirages etc. where they usually have a radar, a designation pod and all sorts of weapons to play with. I'd hope that Typhoon should be quite an 'easy' jet to fly, and the cockpit looks like it's had some thought put into it. So I would hope that anyone who graduates from Valley should be as eligible to fly Typhoon as anything else.
I still think the biggest shame is that the UAS regional trophies aren't decided by an aero's routine fly-off (but then that was always for the lucky 1 on the sqn that got it).
Regards,
Single Seat, Single Engine, The Only Way To Fly